What happens to ponies when they die?
Giving a pony back to the earth isn’t the final step in the process. But it begins the next adventure in a pony’s life. When a pony dies, their body is set out in a wake. This is where a pony’s friends and family may say their goodbyes, leave gifts for the trip to The Great Pastures, and show their feelings for the pony’s life.
Often times the gifts offered are tools and bits. Things that would be helpful against any adventure or challenge that might come to the pony on the Starlight Road.
Then they are cremated in the eternal fire. This fire is lit in a ceremony that uses the sun’s rays to light a funeral pyre. The ashes from the pyre are scattered under the moon’s fair light and lifted by the wind into the sky. This is where the journey of the pony’s spirit begins.
As the ashes lift to the stars, blending with the starlight, a pony’s spirit treks across the skies. The trek is known as the Journey along Starlight Road. Here they encounter perils a plenty, but their bodies are filled with vigor after each challenge. Each challenge is individual, and will reflect challenges that were never overcome in the pony’s life. The offerings of gifts from friends and family will often be helpful at these points. As they overcome these hurdles, the pony travels onward, becoming a brighter and brighter entity as they travel to The Great Pastures.
Eventually, a pony’s spirit, strong with starlight and reflecting their strongest self, will come to a crossroads. Here they will make a choice. They can continue on to The Great Pastures, or they can attempt to return to Earth.
It takes a very special and strong pony to attempt the trek to Earth, however. As the road to The Great Pastures is a soft earth and lush grass path, easily taken and well worn. Beyond it, the sounds of music, laughter and happiness abound. The Great Pastures are depicted with flowing crystal streams and lush vegetation. In it are the ancestors and all of their wisdom, power and glory. Here is where most ponies choose to go. Here, their strength is infinite and unyielding.
The second path is darkened, twisted and overgrown with brambles. The type of pony to attempt this path must be very brave, and have good reason to face such hard challenges. The road to Earth is fraught with dangers, where the brambles of darkness rend and tear at the pony spirit’s strength. As a pony travels this twisted path, much of the strength gained along the Starlight Road is lost. The gifts are ripped from the pony’s grasp and they are left weak and frightened.
All, however, is not lost. A pony who’s spirit and desire were strong enough to bring them to the end of the Thorny Path is swept up into the soft embrace of the Equhame (E-quame) Goddess of Death herself. The pony’s spirit is carried back to earth and placed in an unspirited baby pony.
These ponies are destined from birth to become something great, and are often the stuff of legends. They become heroes, legends, gods and goddesses.
It was a natural thing, death. It wasn't so welcomed among the earthly dwellers, but it was an accepted, if unfortunate, step in the circle of creation and destruction. Like so many aspects of the world, it was presided over by a higher power.
And her name was Equhame. The goddess of Death had no permanent form, for she presided over the dead of all races. She was the feared and terrifying Bitch of Death to the Diamond Dogs, an ashen-coated bitch with a black ridge along her back and deep indigo eyes. To the Griffons she was a mourning grey griffon with black tips along her gins and deep dark claws, who's talons carried the dead's spirits to the other world. Among the horses she was a pale Arabian with her jet black mane and tail flowing and dark hooves that thundered across the sky, leaving trails of stars in her wake. To the ponies in the East, her coat is the colour of cold ashes, while charcoal black scales dot her back, neck, and legs; and silver cloven hooves strike across the milky way. With every toss of her stag-like silver horn she leads ponies to their afterlives, or strikes down the evil souls that would stain the starry sky.
Equhame has been so many things when called upon that she has let herself forget what her original form was. It is her duties that are important, and she needs no one form for them.
The scent of a funeral pyre draws her attention. The smoke is heavy with herbs and flowers, and the sharp scent of burnt fruit and flesh rises to the heavens with the wisps that dance upward.
To Equhame a shape forms in the faint trails, the released spirit of the pony soon takes a definite form and as she watches, it wavers and grows. Whispers of love from the mourners below soon wrap the pony-shape in a warm light, strengthening him with each word. The smoke that brought the spirit upward lays out in a path that stretches onward and upward into the sky.
The pony begins his journey, his destination far ahead of him as he follows the twisting and winding path of starlight and smoke.
It was never easy to stand by to watch the earthly children make their way through the perils. But with each hurdle cleared, Equhame smiled. The further the spirit came the brighter they glowed. The regrets of life were left behind on the Starlight Road and the gifts of love and caring from those around the spirit only strengthened them along.
Equhame stood waiting at the crossroads. For this pony she held the form of a smoke-coloured kirin, her silver blade shining with starlight and the black spots of her scales breaking her outline up.
To the right lay a gently winding road made of soft loam and cool grass. It smelled sweet, was lit with a warm, comforting, like and welcomed all to travel its way. To the left a thick tangle of briars and thorns cover over a hard and rocky road. The air smells of old blood, and haunting cries of unseen voices linger between the brambles.
The brilliant spirit finally makes his way to the crossroad, standing confidently and strong. His eyes trail from the gentle path to the bramble path, then settle on the imposing, matronly, figure before him.
Her voice is soft when she speaks, a gentle, caring tone leaving her throat. "Here lies your choice, my child. There are two paths to take. This one shall take you to the Great Pastures. Your spirit may rest there, and never want again. The grass is cool, the sun is warm, and whatever your desire is provided. Your wisdom and strength shall join that of your forefathers and mothers." Here she indicates the soft, comfortable, path.
"But should your reason be great, and your desire true, you may attempt to return to the Earth. The Bramble Path is your's to take. Few have strength to face this trial, as every thorn and briar shall take your strength and being. It leaves you with little or nothing. But should you pass this test, I shall take you to the Earth, to be born again. Where your life shall be uncertain, and your wants many. You shall be stronger than once you were, but you may not know it. Which path do you choose to take?"
Her indigo eyes turn to the pony, deep endless voids of purple and blue.
The pony gazed from one to the next, weighing her words and his choice. Finally, he raised his head. "I will brave the path of thorns." And without a moment's hesitation, trotted toward the brambles.
A heavy, cloven, hoof came down before him. "Why do you risk your being to return to the Earth?" The question was her own curiosity. She didn't -need- to know. Yet, she always wanted to.
"Wind Chaser. I must return for her. My darling gave her to me, and I have left her alone." He pulled himself as proudly as he could.
"Your name is Star Runner, is it not?" She inquired.
"It is."
"And Wind Chaser is your daughter?" She bowed her head, gazing into his eyes. The pony's spirit glimmered with pride, then flickered in sadness.
"Yes."
"You shall be younger than your daughter..." She warned.
"But she shall not be alone."
Equhame smiled softly. She stood proudly and pulled her hoof aside. "Then I shall escort you."
Star Runner's spirit glowed brightly with fresh hope and he made his way into the brambles ahead, with the Goddess of Death herself at his side.
Each step was fraught with pain. A scratch from the brambles would steep strength, brightness, memories, and the self of anyone who crossed it. Each scratch left a scar on the spirit of the pony while the tips of the brambles shone with a dark red like blood.
Equhame, however, pushed the brambles back. She held the thickest parts aside, the briars and thorns digging past her scaled hide and into her flesh. The goddess felt her strength leaving her, drop by drop. Each point that pierced her spiritual flesh took one bit more of her with it.
Still she pushed along with the pony. Her horn pushing the brambles open, her body shielding his from the dark briars. Time meant nothing, and distance seemed endless, until finally there was a starry sky, rich with the lights of a million stars.
Star Runner fell to the stony ground, his spirit torn and scarred, hooves broken and splintered, and too weak to raise his head.
Equhame emerged after him, her scales ripped from her pale hide, her stag-like horn scratched deeply, one eye closed from the stab of a thorn. Her legs hardly held her, but her duty awaited.
With the gentlest of touches, she picked the pony's broken and battered spirit up, and with faltering steps of her own traveled the milky way of stars to the earth's edge. From there, she crossed with the falling night, trailing like smoke behind the Lunar crossing until she found where the spirit could rest.
A mare was about to give birth, though it would be several months. A spirit did not dwell in the colt's developing form, and so it lay still within her heavy belly. Equhame traveled upon the smoke of a candle, and filled the vessel with the spirit. Her invisible kiss lay on the brow of the colt and as she took to the smoke once more she breathed life into the babe.
Immediately the new life begin to kick, waking the once-sleeping dame.
Equhame took herself back to her sky-bound kingdom, weak from her crossing through the brambles.
As if to taunt her, the whispers of the brambles now held her own voice, though she hardly recognized it. Over and over her name echoed through the thorns. The journey through the path had taken too much, and had left her little more than her only sense of self and duty.
Equhame would not ask the spirits of the earthly children anything more than what she would ask of herself. She would not ask a spirit to traverse the Starlight Road to return their self to themself. To do so, however, one must die.
It was the only way. The Brambles would return what was taken should any spirit make its way through the starlight road.
But for one with no mortal coil, it is impossible. The Starlight Road is for the reclaiming of strength through the overcoming of obstacles not overtaken in a mortal life. And a Goddess has no mortal life.
As she had done so many times before, Equhame looked down upon the world. To reclaim her lost strength, she must become mortal for a lifetime. Then she could walk the Starlight Road and regain her lost self from the Brambles.
